Built at a cost of $87 million, the Arena sits at the heart of Auburn's increased financial support of basketball, a "significant investment" Jacobs referenced in his letter to donors explaining his decision to fire Barbee.

Auburn Arena should be a tool the Tigers' next coach can use to rebuild the program.

"It doesn't matter to me if we're playing on an overpass on 85, I want to win," Jacobs said in an interview with AL.com in January. "We built the Arena so that we could maybe establish a history of basketball here, men's and women's."

Barbee, the only men's head coach at Auburn, failed to fill the venue's 9,121 seats, with attendance dropping 6.9 percent this season to a four-year low of 5,823 fans.

Beyond Barbee's 49-75 record, though, former Auburn legend Sonny Smith knows there are a few extenuating circumstances. Building a consistent fan base at Auburn Arena does present some unique challenges, particularly for midweek games.

A large portion of Auburn's fan base lives far enough away that a midweek trip to the Arena is tough.

"What makes the job somewhat difficult is the area that it's located in," legendary Auburn coach Sonny Smith said. "For instance, when you come to a game from Georgia, when you go home you have an hour time change. If you're a working man, you're going to to go to work getting in after 12. You don't want to go to a Wednesday game. Same thing goes for people driving over from Columbus, Ga. And then you go to Montgomery and Birmingham, you've got to draw from them too."

Smith's solution is to attract more students to the games, an emphasis for Barbee in his early years.

But another Auburn basketball legend knows the key to filling Auburn Arena is simple.

"Hey, man, people want to come see the team win," NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley said. "I'm not an idiot."

Jacobs, who is conducting the search for Auburn's next coach alone -- he is taking input from a few basketball minds -- has set his sights on turning around the program.

"Men's basketball here has had a tough history to overcome," Jacobs said in January. "We haven't had a lot of wins in basketball in years and years and years, and we need to change that. We need to change that, because I believe you can win it all in everything."

But Jacobs doesn't believe that the new stadium adds any pressure to a coach's job, already recognized as a massive rebuilding project to turn around a program that hasn't reached the NCAA Tournament since 2003.

Jacobs believes Auburn's fan base is there, waiting in the wings to support a successful team.

"I don't think about it that way. Last year we weren't playing very well, the Mississippi State and Florida games, we still sold standing-room only tickets," Jacobs said. "People were still coming. It's a great sport, and people love it. We've just got to win."